So how many of you still think us crazy bitches here at PureDWTS were smoking crack when Heidi predicted that all of this would happen…waayyy back on Wednesday?

Yes, I’m gloating on behalf of Heidi, and I don’t care – because honestly, I’ve never hoped she’d be wrong more than I have this past week. But in a show of true favoritism & wanton idiocy, the judges played into every single cliche they could that resulted in an extraordinarily padded score for Chelsea – and a brutal beating for Ralph, leaving him so far down in the basement in scores that nothing short of divine intervention could possibly save him from going home tomorrow night. Whoops…did I spoil the rankings for you?

1.) Chelsea & Mark – These two couldn’t possibly be any safer, and it’s not due extraordinary dancing – Chelsea was decent tonight, but nowhere near deserving some of the truly inflated scores that were being handed to her. Her Argentine tango had the potential to be good – if she wasn’t moving so damn gingerly. Wendy’s foxtrot had more impactful footwork than this! She captured the mood, yes; but the lifts looked a bit clunky & she never seemed to really hit any of the steps with the staccato that I like in a tango (perhaps she should have watched the playback of Mark doing the “salsa” last week for inspiration). As for the rumba…*shaking my head* Strike one: using a silly prop like gauzy fabric. Strike 2: using an “edgy” song from the Twilight soundtrack. Strike three: wearing character shoes instead of ballroom shoes – AGAIN. If that wouldn’t be enough to get her out, strike 4 would have been the complete lack of hip & leg action I saw from her. I might have enjoyed this more had I not been spoiled by great rumbas in the past by Jennifer & Mel B, which actually were 30-worthy. Their “winner take all” cha-cha was decent, and definitely more complex than any of the others – but I still feel like Chelsea’s legs stay pin-straight throughout the dance, and she lacks the characteristic bending & straighting of the knees. But none of this matters to the judges – they’ve made it abundantly clear that they want her in the finals, and so to the finals she goes. Pffft.

2.) Hines & Kym – Hines, god bless him, was the one true bright spot of the evening for me – and dadgummit, I cried with he & Kym after their Argentine tango! While I don’t think that tango was perfect (I’m gonna chalk it up to nerves due to Kym’s injury), he definitely schooled Ralph & Chelsea in what A. tango should look like – and Kym, god bless her too, soldiered through and the two of them actually managed to perform a routine that made me give a damn. It was definitely nice to see Hines back in the same fight mode that I haven’t really seen from him since his samba in week 3 🙂 Their salsa was definitely cute – and Hines is the master of staying on time and not missing steps. But like their A. tango, I don’t think it was perfect. Near-perfect, but not perfect – something about Hines’ face just made me think he wasn’t 100% in the dance. He definitely had the cleanest cha-cha – but I guess the judges would rather have complexity over cleanliness, which is why they chose Chelsea over him. I give up. I would have given these two the 15 points as the icing on the cake for their soldiering through what looked to be a very, very scary injury to me (this is coming from a girl who’s grandfather was a paraplegic for 10 months after a simple fall at home). I don’t mess with spinal injuries – this made my stomach churn even worse than seeing Evan land on his neck after a stunt in season 10. But I digress. These two are safe, thanks to some pretty damn good performances on an otherwise dismal night…and one very ridiculous points spread.

3.) Kirstie & Maks – I’m afraid I just don’t have a lot to say tonight about these two, other than “Did I miss something?” I don’t think Kirstie was at her best tonight, and I guess I’m gonna chalk it up to burnout – of the 4 remaining contestants, she’s the one that I still worry about most when it comes to endurance. However, the judges seemed to think she was fantastic, and much more so than Ralph – I just don’t understand it. She misses steps in her paso (which, on an unrelated note, seemed to end rather abruptly…anyone notice that?), and got a tad off-time in her Viennese waltz. Yet she still scores considerably better than Ralph, who I don’t think missed any steps. *shrugs* I’m beyond trying to understand it at this point. I definitely preferred her V. waltz to her paso doble, as it was actually pretty lovely, aside from the timing issue I saw a few times. Felt a little let down by her cha-cha – it felt like the same cha-cha she’s done twice before this season, and she still messed it up a bit this time 🙁 Again, I’ll give her a break due to lack of energy, but I was counting on her to hopefully bump Chelsea out of the running for those extra 15 points…and she didn’t deliver. Luckily, she’s got the fanbase to pull her through, and a pretty decent lead over Ralph – she & Maks better step up their game in a big way, though, because both Chelsea & Hines are miles ahead of her in terms of stamina.

4.) Ralph & Karina – I should have known better than to think that the judges might turn over a new leaf and actually be nice to Ralph tonight…because the barrage of criticism they threw at him was downright sickening at times. No love for his Argentine tango, which really wasn’t all that bad – he may not have been 100% in the sultry “character” of it, but I daresay his technique was better than Chelsea’s, since he actually managed to get some impact with his steps. The judges went straight for the jugular on his salsa, too – I actually thought he had more energy and more entertaining content than Hines’ salsa did, but either the judges were blind to it or I was drawn to it more than the average bear, because it was lost on them. And Karina – god bless her for calling Bruno out on what I’m deducing was one very uncalled for lewd comment – had I been there, I may have needed to be put in a straight jacket after breaking that fool’s nose and then going for his gonads. Admittedly, his cha-cha was the weakest – but I knew that going in. The poor guy has never been great at cha-cha – he was facing a stacked deck going into this 3-ring circus of a “bonASS dance”. I wanted to shove a dirty sock in all three of the judges mouths as their sole words of compliment were “You tried so hard tonight!” before heaping praise on Hines. Made me sick. And now, he’s gotta face the music tomorrow night – and I’m sure the judges will all sit there, with their smug little smiles on their faces, and pretend to be disappointed that the poor guy is going home and that they’ll miss him – when in reality, they’re the ones to blame for his departure. Bravo.

And so ends quite possibly the most disappointing night of DWTS I have ever watched. Sorry to burst the bubble of any of you that had the time of your life watching tonight – because I was miserable for most of it, due to the blatant over & underscoring going on. I don’t deal with hidden (or in this case, not-so-hidden) agendas very well. But I’m gonna suck it up and go power vote for Ralph, in the event that there were enough Ralph fans as pissed off as Heidi & I were at how things panned out that are doing the exact same thing. Wouldn’t it be so awesome to watch the judges’ jaws drop if Ralph stuck around for yet another week? 😉 I know, I know…wishful thinking. But a girl can dream 🙂 Fare ye well, Ralph…